MIAMI, FLORIDA: According to scientists, hungry sharks may be consuming drugs discarded off the coast of Florida, which may be driving them somewhat insane. The notion is examined in 'Cocaine Sharks,' a Shark Week show on Discovery Channel that draws its name from the 'Cocaine Bear', which consumed approximately 75lbs of cocaine in 1985 and inspired a comedy-horror movie that came out earlier in 2023.
"It's a catchy headline to shed light on a real problem, that everything we use, everything we manufacture, everything we put into our bodies, ends up in our wastewater streams and natural water bodies, and these aquatic life we depend on to survive are then exposed to that," stated Dr Tracy Fanara, a Florida-based environmental engineer and lead member of the research team, per The Guardian.
What are 'Cocaine Sharks'?
'Cocaine Sharks' investigated if sharks off the Florida coast were consuming drugs that traffickers threw into the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists set up an experiment where they dropped packages that resembled cocaine bundles into the sea and watched the sharks' reactions.
Since the '80s, massive bales of cocaine have often washed up on Florida's beaches after being thrown into the water by smugglers while trying to evade authorities. In June, police discovered illegal drugs worth more than $186M in the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, according to the US Coast Guard.
Fanara said, "We’ve seen studies with pharmaceuticals, cocaine, methamphetamines, ketamine, all of these, where fish are being [affected] by drugs," adding, “If these cocaine bales are a point source of pollution, it’s very plausible [sharks] can be affected by this chemical. Cocaine is so soluble that any of those packages open just a little, the structural integrity is destroyed and the drug is in the water.”
How did the sharks react?
British marine biologist Tom Hird headed for the Florida Keys with Fanara to research and gather data on the issue. There, they discovered a hammerhead shark acting strangely around divers and a sandbar shark swimming round and round, almost as if it was stalking an imaginary prey. They saw the sharks swimming directly towards the fake bales they had thrown in the water, and chomping on them.
In another experiment, they created a "bait ball" of fish powder that was extremely concentrated and gave off a dopamine rush comparable to a cocaine hit. "I think we have got a potential scenario of what it may look like if you gave sharks cocaine," Hird said, adding, "We gave them what I think is the next best thing. [It] set [their] brains aflame. It was crazy." The experiments would need to be performed numerous times in order to reach a conclusion, according to Hird, who cautioned that what they saw did not necessarily suggest the sharks had actually eaten cocaine.
Highlighting the precarious state of the Earth's marine ecosystem, Fanara said, "It’s like a game of Jenga where we’re at the top. We’re in the sixth mass extinction and the more chemicals we introduce, the more radical changes we introduce, the more precarious it gets," adding, "These animals are leaving one by one and the integrity of the tower is depleting, even if we might not feel it right now. At some point, the tower’s going to fall.”
